There is an oddity in today’s martyrology (listing of the saints) in that we find two different St. Christines and a St. Christiana. St. Christina the Astonishing (1150-1224) was born to a peasant family in Belgium. She was orphaned as a child and raised by her two older sisters. When she was 21 she had what was believed to be a severe seizure, and was pronounced dead. At her funeral...

St. Gualtero was the only child of Aliprando and Adelazia, pious parents who were childless so long that they promised God they would devote any child of theirs to the Church. They kept their pledge, giving the boy a good education, and by age fifteen Gualtero was working as a Hospitaller friar in the San Raimondo il Palmerio hospital in Piacenza, Italy, beginning his lifelong devotion to care...

For the third time this week, the Church honors the memory of one of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Ezekiel was born in the Land of Israel to his father Buzi, a priest, and it was there that he began his career as a prophet. Then, in the year 3327 (434 BCE), Jerusalem was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jewish king Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) along...

Today the Church remembers Daniel, prophet of Israel in exile. Daniel, meaning "God is my Judge," is the hero of the biblical Book of Daniel. A noble Jewish youth of Jerusalem, he is taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and serves the king and his successors with loyalty and ability until the time of the Persian conqueror Cyrus, all the while remaining true to the God of...

Today the Church remembers Elijah the Prophet, perhaps the most famous of all the Prophets of Israel from the Hebrew Scriptures.  He announced to Ahaz, King of Israel, who under the influence of his Tyrian wife Jezabel had erected a temple to Baal, that Jehovah had determined to avenge the apostasy of Israel by bringing a long drought on the land. During the drought which lasted three...